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Letters: Real terms

In his Thistle Diary (28 September), Tam Dalyell quotes Arnold Wolfendale,
the Astronomer Royal, and the related comments by the education secretary,
Kenneth Clarke, on the worth of funds for science.

Tam Dalyell calls this a desperately important debate, and so it is,
but it is also a dialogue of the deaf. Kenneth Clarke’s point is that the
science budget has risen by 23 per cent in real terms over the past 11 years
or so. It may be assumed that ‘real terms’ means that the Budget pounds
were adjusted according to British inflation, which is measured by the changes …